I'm not sure if this is deliberate or not. Perhaps it's just ignorance. I don't know. But I thought I would go over my working definitions for each of these.

These definitions may or may not agree with the dictionary. Quite frankly, I could care less. They work for me, and they help me deal with complex issues. Perhaps they'll be useful to you as well.

If I ever meet this guy, I'm going to punch him right in the nose

I just spent the last week at the beach, and my kids love TV. They like getting out and doing stuff, but the minute they come back the TV comes on. It's like they are incapable of self-directed enjoyment.

I wonder if other people notice this in their kids too?

While we're on the subject of TV, I'm really getting annoyed at these commercials I see everywhere. It seems like everything is fair game and there's no common decency. Call me a prude, but I would think that commercials should be viewable by kids. But we're getting disgusting, intimate, crass, and ugly stuff shoved at us during almost every commercial break no matter what the time or what the underlying show. It's enough to swear off broadcast television completely.

Here are several commercials that I would like to shoot with a bazooka:

Myrtle Beach has been called the "Redneck Riviera" due to the fact that it is convenient to the Bible Belt and is known as a lower cost family resort vacation.

I think the term is a little overdone. Myrtle Beach, located in the southeastern United States, is a good example of what happens when government gets out of the way of progress. As somebody who has been coming every year or so for the past forty years, it's been interesting watching things change.

South Carolina is not a rich state, but it does have beautiful beaches. For some reason unknown to me, the city fathers of Myrtle Beach decided not to have overly restrictive zoning regulations. They decided to let the place grow like it wanted to grow. What happened next was an interesting experiment.

I blog for myself, mostly. I'd like something for the great-great grandkids to read about me, and I enjoy putting my thoughts on paper. If you like any of this, I'm happy.

My latest reading mission has been on web marketing. I want to find out why and how some people start with Google and end up buying something. We all do it, yet I really don't have a clue as to how it happens!

After years of creating some pretty good programs, the light finally dawned on me that promotion and marketing is as much, or actually much more of an important skill than just slinging code. Being a code monkey is fine, but it's more fun to build a code zoo. I'm finding something similar in web marketing.

Not that everybody else knows. Some folks seem determined to ignore reality.

Many, many times somebody at Google says something like, "Well, the best way to get people to visit your site is just to have good content."

That's total horse-hockey, and Google knows it. Let's get real.

A young Iranian woman protests the rigged elections in her country

Our thoughts go out to the people of Iran who had their election stolen from them. Of all things, being able to change course peacefully is the one thing that separates successful nations from failed nations. Hopefully Iran can find some way to become the intellectual and cultural star is has the potential to be.

I have a major client that is about to end a contract sometime in the next few weeks/months. Somehow it became traditional with me many years ago to do something unusual at the end of each contract -- sort of a rite of passage. So I've lost some weight, shaved the beard, and now, e-gads! the magical hair-of-youth! I told my wife I would dye my hair blue. She yawned and said it would go well with my eyes. She knows the score.

I know I am not alone in this: a friend who is in the same situation is buying a sports car and another friend has decided to become a certified fitness trainer. A third friend in the same situation decided to become a priest. Another decided he wanted to try painting. I guess somehow these contract transitions lends themselves to trying new things.

I tell people I have been very lucky to have had a dozen careers in the same lifetime. I really mean that -- it's been an incredible ride. I've seen startups, dot-coms, Fortune 10s, big government, big insurance, big finances -- I've seen a lot. It's been great. Somebody asked me once if I was afraid of the uncertainty of a contract ending. Not at all! I look to each contract as a wonderful chance to meet great people and help them out -- it's impossible to go on to the next contract without the current one ending. And so far each new gig is better than the last. Who's complaining?

As I sat in the lounge in Atlanta yesterday trying to read, there was a television on. I was subjected to local news, Entertainment Tonight, and some real-life garbage. It was hours and hours of stuff you'd show a person who was mentally deficient a hundred years ago: innuendo, gossip, people arguing with each other over nothing while thousands watched. The vain in search of the famous.

Maybe people on the internet blab a lot about things they know nothing about, but it certainly didn't start with the internet.

I was finishing up work on one of my microsites (shameless plug: Neuropathy is a serious condition and you should be aware of it) when I came to the decision about badges.

Badges are those little graphics you see on some web pages that assure the reader how safe the page is. "Scanned for viruses" or "Member of the BBB" or "HackerSafe" or "Endorsed by Dr. Phil"

We've all seen them. I looked into how to get some of these. Some are very expensive! Some just require you to fill out an online form. One page had a bunch of the buttons and said to complete the application to receive one. Only there wasn't an application anywhere. So I just lifted one of the images.

One guy was making his own badges. "Approved by Chuck!" it proudly said, with a picture of Chuck (I presume) in the middle of an ornate circle.

So from a web owner standpoint, these badges are valued all over the place, and what do they really say? That you had money to pay somebody? Do the badges actually serve a purpose?

So management told them: produce or die. Basically either finish up your work in the next sprint or we'll just throw away the entire project and start over with a different team.

It was amazing. People started working harder, using and creating effective information radiators. The team's stand-ups became laser-focused on the work. Everybody was looking for obstacles and getting them out of the way before they could affect progress. The team innovated several new ways of getting things done faster. They had a six-fold increase in productivity.

So what drives innovation, anyway? What makes one team create the next Google and the next team struggle to create a simple report?

The British government is taxing your imports and exports. Their agents are everywhere in the bigger cities, making sure that the right companies are allowed commerce. When troubles arise, instead of the Brits coming over to fix it, they hire Germans to come and do their dirty work for them.

Even with all of the discontent, it was very difficult for the colonies to decide to leave the empire. When Jefferson sat down to write the Declaration of Independence, he listed all of the reasons the social contract with England had to be dissolved. The reasoning was basically "we kept up our end of the bargain, but you failed yours"

Adding fuel to the fire was Thomas Paine, who basically called the King of England a brute and said he had no business ruling England, much less the colonies. Paine spoke in a common, easy manner, and appealed directly to his countryman's sense of fairness and justice.

I was thinking about Jefferson and Paine as I continue to read about the amount of public debt the United States is building up and planning to build up. Out of a need to do something, anything, I wrote my senator, Jim Webb.

I told Webb I was a big fan of his books and national service and asked him to do something about out-of-control spending. I told him I also liked his ideas on prison and drug reform. Prison and drug reform are things we can do that could actually raise more money for the government. They could give us more freedoms in our lives. But keep your priorities, I begged. I asked Webb to do what he could about holding runaway spending in check. Don't make a big political scene, I told him. Nobody is looking for you to make a big break from your party. Just don't be a political putz and do the right thing. Don't be a party man. Be a representative.

What happened?

But Agile is also a kind of movement. There are conferences, books, a manifesto, seminars, training, videos and all sorts of other things to help you out. Sometimes this help gets kind of silly, like in the recent conference where haiku was proposed as a way of bonding the team together better. Like anything that focuses on person-to-person interaction, there's no shortage of opinions. So because Agile focuses on the critical factors of technology development, communication and collaboration between humans, it has roots close to sales, negotiation, religion, psychology, politics, sensitivity, feelings, expectations -- all of that messy people stuff.

So what happens is that there are a lot of people who are very serious about developing software as efficiently as possible chasing a lot of stories and anecdotes about just how to do that. What can I say? Sometimes it feels like geek sensitivity training.

So as a public service to the agile community, I would like to offer the reasons why Agile Project Management is like teenage sex.

Who doesn't like sitting around all afternoon while somebody updates a spreadsheet?
Woo Hoo! Good times.

I get to watch a lot of project teams on a lot of different projects, so I get to see how teams organize their work and track it. And let's face it -- some things keep team energy and productivity high and some seem to drive it into the ground.

Working from a spreadsheet drives it into the ground.

What's interesting is how easy it is to do this yet how difficult it is to recognize and talk about.

You all know what I'm talking about. Somebody somewhere thinks it's a good idea to keep something in a computer. Maybe it's a list of project stories, a release plan, or the tasks everybody is currently working on. It's an easy and totally natural thing. Who wants to do things by hand when the computer can do them much easier?

The problem is that simply because something is easier for you doesn't mean it's easier for everybody else. Tracking a hundred tasks for the current sprint on a spreadsheet may be an awesome and efficient use of your time. Taking 3 hours of team time while they watch you update it is not.

Resveratrol, which has a resemblance to estrogen, may hold the key
to longer life, better health, and prevention of certain common diseases.
No, I have not been smoking it.

Some folks play the ponies. Some curse. Some people read horoscopes Other people ride camels and wear funny shoes. Some people kick their dog around when they get home at night.

I'm a vitamin freak.

I don't know really how it started. The basic idea is to hack my nutrient uptake system -- provide more of things I might need to achieve a few percentage points of higher mental and physical performance. I went on this health kick about ten years ago when I started taking multivitamins. Then I read some books on how supplements can help with various other health problems. I tried them and they seemed to work.

Of course most of it was probably the placebo effect, but hey, the placebo effect is a powerful thing; if it works, use it.

If you're not into the vitamin scene, let me explain the big picture. Usually there is a study or a famous author that comes out in favor of substance X. Much hype and ballyhoo is made, and for a while substance X can do everything from fight colds to cure cancer and grow hair.

Then somebody finds that substance X is actually dangerous, pointless, or a waste of money. The furor dies down. A few die-hard types keep taking substance X. Meanwhile a new study comes out about substance Y, which is REALLY awesome. Everybody chases after that. There are two camps: the supplement boosters and the supplement naysayers. One side is always after the latest in technology, while the other argues that none of it is worth anything.

In other words, it's just like social networking software.

I understand the silliness of this. After all, I am a rational person. I like the placebo effect for some of the things I take and I'm always hoping that one of these magic substances will pan out. I'm like the guy who keeps betting on the long-shot horse.

Sooner or later even long shots win.

And I've got that feeling about resveratrol, which I've been following and taking for the last five years. For my friends who are hackers and heavy analytical types, I can hear you grumbling. Tell you what, let me show you the evidence so far. You decide whether this long shot is going to win or not. I'll give you the three main reasons why I think resveratrol is the real deal.

What's more fun to watch, this? Or a couple of guys having a knife fight?

I'm picking up a new hobby this summer: SCUBA diving.

It's something I've wanted to do for years, and due to an upcoming trip to Australia I figured it was time to learn. I hear that diving the Great Barrier Reef is something everyone should do once in their life.

It doesn't look too difficult to learn -- nothing like instrument flying. There's a nice blue book, a DVD, a dive computer and some forms. You read the book, take the tests, and watch the movie. Assuming you're able to absorb all of the information, you pass the knowledge test. Of course, the real trick is learning skills. That comes during your hands-on training. We have ours scheduled for next month at Myrtle Beach, SC.

At first I thought this would be simple. The instructor said all that was required was a mask, fins, and snorkel. So I bought one for my wife and oldest son (oldest daughter is still too little). But like every other hobby I've ever tried, they suck you in incrementally. I thought it might be good to have my own vest, so I ordered that. Of course, you really need the regulator with the vest, so I ordered that, too. And to round it out you really need an alternate air supply. So out comes the VISA for that.

Then there's the repair kits, the anti-fog gel (found out that Dawn works well here), the dive slates, the watches, the knives, the dive computers -- must have dive computer -- the goodie bags, the tanks, the signaling devices. Who knows? There's probably a place where I can buy those cool electric underwater propulsion devices from Thunderball.

Why can't hobbies be simpler? Or am I only attracted to hobbies that are complicated? I read somewhere that flying was a great hobby for people who enjoyed very intricate and detailed physics and gadgetry. I can believe that. SCUBA doesn't seem as bad as flying, but it's also full of expensive props and gizmos, especially once you start talking about technical diving.

Some areas of human activity are simply more complex than others: no doubt about it. But I think people in general have a tendency to take simple things and make them more complex over time. I see this with software teams every day. I explain how simple agile practices are but that's not good enough. Before you know it somebody's made it into a set of rules and strict procedures that are highly complicated. We simply love showing people how smart we are, and making things more complicated is a good way to do that. Why have a list of index cards when we can use a spreadsheet? Why have developers self-organize around story completion when we can break things down into a hundred little pieces?

Because we can.

Somebody said that things should be as complicated as they have to be and not a bit more. I think that's a good rule to follow whether it's hobbies, work, government, or anything else.